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Pakistani pop music was born
on the day when four young, clean-cut, jeans-clad boys ventured on to
Pakistani television screens with their guitars and a catchy patriotic
song in 1986. Result? Instant uproar in cheers and celebration in the
country. It was something completely new in a society struggling to come
to terms with the censorship imposed by a repressive military
dictatorship and the narrow, ideologically defined limits of state
culture. The four young boys, their music and their behaviour smacked of
Western influences and they represented a youth culture heretofore
denied any representation on the staid state channel. While the young
hailed them as a breath of fresh air in a stultifying environment, to
the older defenders of public morality the four boys represented all
that was wrong with the youth of the day: "illiterate of their own
culture, interested in slavishly aping the West, and wasting their time
in frivolous pursuits rather than becoming respected citizens of
society." Little did either side suspect at the time that the Vital
Signs, which these boys fancifully called themselves, and their song, "Dil
Dil Pakistan", would signal the start of the music revolution in
Pakistan.
Ali Azmat (Album Deewana)
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